“The right to go where you want should be a principle in a decent world.”
Noam Chomsky

Less than two hundred years ago most of our ancestors thought that chattel slavery was perfectly acceptable. If we discovered today that our great great grandfather was a slave owner we would be at least chagrined and probably embarrassed. Ethics change.

I predict that the same is going to be true about migration. Less than two hundred years from now migration will be one of the rights we take for granted. People will be free to move away from places where they have little opportunity and into places that they want to live. And just like with slavery if your descendants learn that you were involved in restricting immigration they will be at least chagrined and probably extremely embarrassed.

How can we get to this nirvana of free migration? One way to start would be for the USA and other receiving nations to allow annual immigration of one percent of their population. With a caveat that the new immigrants not be an undue burden on the place they move to. The question of mitigating “undue burden” can be solved through bonds, sponsorships and reallocation of the money spent on fruitless border enforcement.

If you want to avoid embarrassing your descendants here are a few thing you can do to signal that you want more open immigration to the USA. Give money to pro immigrant nonprofit groups. We give to The Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project and to CHIRLA. Be vocal in your support for more orderly immigration and make it one of your primary voting issues. Don’t vote for people who want to slam the door again or those who talk about immigration reform but do nothing about it. And finally when possible employ the undocumented.

It is going to be a long struggle but Noam Chomsky was correct: “The right to go where you want should be a principle in a decent world.”